For Pankovits, ValleyCats’ crown is title of a lifetime

BROOKLYN – Manager Jim Pankovits hung on the outside of the clubhouse mosh pit of players, a champagne-like bottle of sparkling grape juice in hand, the real stuff back in his office.

Second baseman Kike Hernandez dragged him into the middle of the frenzy, dousing him as the longtime manager bobbed up and down with his team while spraying players himself.

It was a new feeling for the 55-year-old, even if there was a similar celebration in this very same clubhouse a couple of weeks back.

The Tri-City ValleyCats have been told time and again by Pankovits that opportunities like this one, a New-York-Penn League title won Tuesday with a 5-1 victory over the Brooklyn Cyclones, don’t come around very often.

Winning one of these can take a lifetime. That’s how long Pankovits, a baseball lifer, has waited to celebrate an ultimate title.

That’s why the team celebrated winning a divisional crown the last time they came to Coney Island, even if it came after a loss on the last day of the season. That’s why they partied hard on the MCU Park field and in that same clubhouse after sweeping the heavily favored Cyclones in the best-of-three series.

Opportunities to win titles don’t come around very often, he’s told his players. Pankovits never bothered to supply the personal context. The players wouldn’t care, he reckoned. But his experience in baseball shows that the next title may never come, and when there’s any chance to grab one, you can never, ever take it for granted.

“Always a bridesmaid,” Pankovits said of his playing career a few days back.

“I was on the Little League World Series team that in 1968 finished second to Japan.

“I played on a senior league for 13- and 14-year-olds, (a) team that finished second in the World Series. It was (to) a team from California.

“In the American Legion, we went to the World Series. We didn’t finish second. We lost two games out there.

“And College World Series. Second place. Texas beat us when I was at South Carolina.”

He was also on the 1986 Houston Astros that lost to the New York Mets in 16 innings in Game 6 of the NLCS, with the unbeatable Mike Scott slated to go Game 7. He’s always been close, won his share of division titles as a manager, but this is the first time he’s been with a ballclub that closed the deal.

“I’m a little tired of second place right now,” he said after Game 1 of this series.

Ben Orloff, the undersized Tri-City shortstop who seemed to find himself in the middle of every key rally this year while earning team MVP honors, suffered through the ValleyCats’ losing season last year, and the first-half trials before the team went on a 31-16 tear to close out the regular season and playoffs. He knows how hard this is, even if he didn’t know how long his manager has waited.

“That’s crazy,” he said. “They are tough to win. It’s crazy to have gone this far.”

He motions over to first baseman Marcus Nidiffer. No titles in high school. None in college. Nothing. Now this.

“This is very important,” Nidiffer said. “When it happens, it’s a big relief.”

Before the season Pankovits said there would be a renewed emphasis on winning in the Houston Astros’ organization which had not won a league title at any level since Corpus Christi (Double A) in 2006. Winning helps player development, the goal of the minors. Winning is important. Winning it all is rare, rarer than most of these players dare fear.

The ValleyCats seemed to have the game sewn up with that four-run lead in the ninth. But a pair of singles wrapped around an out made it first and third, and power hitter Jeff Flagg was at the plate with a 2-0 hitter’s count.

“It’s about time, isn’t it? It’s about time,” he said on the field after the game. “I guess if you’re in enough of ’em, sooner or later you will get one.”

He had to wait through two days of rainouts, and a hairy ninth inning. That’s nothing. Pankovits’ wait is over. He’s going to savor every minute of this, not knowing when or if the next one will come around.